Drawing Simple Figures
Using tools such as the Rectangle tool, you can draw 2D shapes, like the rectangle you see in Figure 1.4. Besides rectangles, you can draw circles, polygons, and arcs using the corresponding tools.
FIGURE 1.4 A horizontal rectangle.
NOTE: Starting Simple
Information about the various tools is spread across all the lessons in this book; you are encouraged to follow them in order because they build on one another. However, you’ll find specific coverage in certain lessons. For example, there’s more on drawing lines, rectangles, and other simple figures in Lesson 3, “Drawing Shapes: Lines, Rectangles, Polygons, and Circles.”
Notice that the rectangle in Figure 1.4 has an orientation—it’s horizontal. Keep in mind that Google SketchUp is a 3D program. When you draw a 2D figure, you’re drawing a 2D figure in 3D. By default, SketchUp makes such a figure horizontal, although you can rotate it. SketchUp will also snap 2D figures to any underlying surface, aligning them along that surface, as you can see in Figure 1.5, where we’ve drawn rectangles that SketchUp has snapped to the sides of a 3D polygon.
FIGURE 1.5 Rectangles snapped to the sides of a 3D polygon.
How do we create a 3D object like the one in Figure 1.5? By going 3D, as we’ll see in the next section.
Thanks :
Steven Holzner,
SamsTeachYourself Google SketchUp 8 in 10 Minutes
